No one has been confrontational. If you think I have been, I simply have very little patience for the kinds of arguments I'm hearing, as I get them all the time. I don't consider them to hold any weight whatsoever so I dismiss them pretty quickly. I apologize if you mistook that as speaking down to you ^^'

Also a strawman is used to try to feel a personal sense of victory, constructing a poorly made and false summation of the opponents point to knock it down. As I said earlier, that wasn't a strawman, a bit simplistic, but it wasn't a false summation of what many theists think like.

Sorry Jebble, but you seem to lack an understanding of where the evidence of a claim should come from. We do not claim that god or the supernatural does not exist perse, we state that the evidence supporting the claim is sorely lacking. Theists on the other hand make the claim, even so far as to say, "I know that God exists." This is a claim and yet there is no evidence to support this.

Claims don't have to have evidence. That is why there claims and not theories.

claim/klām/Verb: State or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.Noun: An assertion of the truth of something, typically one that is disputed or in doubt.

Not a strawman since that is the viewpoint of several theists in a nutshell, and at the very least the ballsy ones are quite capable of admitting they don't know. At least they're bloody honest about it rather than coming up with a half-cocked story that balks against anything resembling logic or rationality.

But your talking to me. Not several theists. Me. If you can't focus yourself on the other position in a discussion your aren't really discussing, your talking for the sake of talking.

No one has been confrontational. If you think I have been, I simply have very little patience for the kinds of arguments I'm hearing, as I get them all the time. I don't consider them to hold any weight whatsoever so I dismiss them pretty quickly. I apologize if you mistook that as speaking down to you ^^'

Okay, I am sorry if I came off argumentative, I'm just distracted and had to pull myself away from hotbox fun.

It's cool man :) This topic does get heated even when we're trying oh so hard to be civil. I admit that the way I word some things, and my analogies can come off as a bit insulting, and I am trying to find nicer ways to express my opinions ^^'

By the way, I have to know... what the hell is your avatar? I love it! Sentai? Kamen Rider?

No, that has been explicitly stated more than once or in a variation very much similar. That's not an opinion.

As for a claim, people don't consider them claims, theists consider them fact and god (no irony intended) save you if you don't believe the same. So yes, technically, claims have no evidence, but people fail to understand that what they believe is a claim, and treat it like it's a commonly known fact and 'how do you not know that?' You're arguing semantics.

Quote

But your talking to me. Not several theists. Me. If you can't focus yourself on the other position in a discussion your aren't really discussing, your talking for the sake of talking.

Last I checked, this was a conversation that tied into thesits and atheists in general, which is what I was talking about. And asserting that I'm 'talking for the sake of talking' is not a good way to come off as having a adult conversation. Keep the passive aggressive statements out of here please.

Quote

Of coarse there is no evidence or it would be a fact not a hypothesis.

Then what exactly are you defending? If there is no evidence, then there is no point for any reasonable or logical person to partake in that train of thought. Without evidence, or even a hypothesis, which for the record is an educated guess, (having sound groundwork to lay such a guess upon, previous evidence, previous theories, observation, etc) then there is no reason to consider it. Especially when such things are ludicrous and vague at best.

Quote

I seem to know it quite well maybe you should look up the definitions to confirm.

You seem to have taken what I said as being intended to be condescending, which I did not. I know the definitions, of which there seems to be several types of agnostics and you were bent on narrowing it done into one field. I was commenting that there are several variations of agnostic and you showed confusion over it and was sympathizing. I will attempt to be more clear in the matter as it seems that is dictated.

It's cool man :) This topic does get heated even when we're trying oh so hard to be civil. I admit that the way I word some things, and my analogies can come off as a bit insulting, and I am trying to find nicer ways to express my opinions ^^'

By the way, I have to know... what the hell is your avatar? I love it! Sentai? Kamen Rider?

Not quite its from an early ninety's attempt to bring an anime into a live action movie.

I hadn't realized my definition had changed at all, but I do find your definitions confusing which was the reason I interjected into this topic in the first place (that and some historical details). Yes, there are many types of faith: purely affective, special knowledge, belief, trust, but all of these are still religious faith as understood in theology and applicable even for humanists and atheists. I didn't have an issue with your evidentialist definition, but I did want to point out that a supposed lack of rationality itself as a factor in faith is incorrect - or at least completely alien to me. My definitions haven't shifted, but that is because I never sought to describe one of the above models of faith but instead claim the definition of faith I saw being used as unknown to me. As unknown as all of the above definitions being attributed to my own.

Only in so far as every secular authority was in exactly the same position. They were all squabbling for control. Why did Charlemagne need the church if he had so much power? That is a rhetorical question.

They didn't need it, but they certainly desired it for various reasons. A source of legitimacy and propaganda, access to a learned class of scribes and scholars, the power to claim moral and righteous superiority over an enemy, and especially control over the pilgrimage and alms income coursing through the veins of early Medieval Catholicism. It was the church that needed Charlemagne, not the other way around. Without him Rome would face yet another political threat that would diminish and humiliate them back into the Orthodox fold - the Byzantine Emperor.

Quote

You and I must have different definitions of 'lack of political power'. I concede the church was not omnipotent (thank god). They exercised just as much political power as the secular authorities.

Political power like what? If a pope ever bought out and controlled someone like Mathilda of Tuscany, or made a Holy Roman Emperor march through the snow to beg forgiveness and surrender before the 12th century, you would be correct. But the fact is that the church was not even potent before the turn of the first millennium AD, let alone omnipotent.

Until we develop a unifying theory I wouldn't put much stock in our universe being limited to only the forms of energy we are currently aware of.

Energy is a defined term. There may well be some strange thing out there that does what you describe, but if so, it's not energy.

Besides, the discovery of the Higgs boson lends a lot of mass to the standard model of particle physics. (I couldn't resist).

Quote

straw man

Quote

Straw man again but "The universe just exists because that's the way universes work" isn't an explanation its an admission of ignorance and Occam's razor applies to hypothesis not admissions.

I'm sorry, I don't have time to touch on these just now as I have to go to work. However, I'd recommend rereading my posts with the knowledge that I have no interest in Straw-manning you but that I do use exaggeration to draw attention to particular elements.

With that knowledge, hopefully my intent will come through and you can see what I meant. If not I will clear it up further when I get home, sorry if I've miscommunicated.

Saber thank you for explaining what I was saying better than I could, I am no genus by any means and I started doing this research for a historic game that takes place in europe and asia over the course of history, and religious instutions both organized and non play a large role in history.

To be honest the outright hostility to, and ignorance of, theology and religious history in general, that I've been seeing online and off I think is a detriment to the future of mankind. I hate seeing rabid religious nuts like the westburogh baptists (they are not christians, they are cultists on par with the Jonestown loonies.) or the depctions of priests in modern media either as innocent victims of badguys, or far right hypocrits as the only example of faith people are exposed to.This is not only insulting and false, it makes people cling to their doctrine all the harder, and allows extremists to minupliate that fear.

We have to face it, faith and religion are part of human culture, and they do not stay stagnent, they will change, but they will remain.I liked Doctor Who's dipiction of "The Roman Church" and how they'd changed by the year 2570.anyways continuing on with the history of organized religion.

What triggered the reformation was a combhination of factors, the advent of the printing press allowed ideas, proppaganda, edicts, information, and entertainment to be widely availble to the common man.The growing power of the cathloic church post-crusade worried many secular authorities. dispite the collapse of crusader zeal, and defeat, the three major crusades did a lot to propell the cathloic church into a position of power and authority, though the power of the church waxed and waned depending on the pope in power. For example a french king moving the pope from Rome to France to keep him in line.But the church held ultimate power over the souls of europe, This resulted in the church able to bargen as a major power, and even profit from it's monopoly.Bishops wielded greater power than ever before, many the equal of princes, and that power corrupted them.This is the church that many people remember as the abusive, opressive, corrupt, anti-science organization.

It began to be more important to "tow the party line" with the pope in power having final say over church Doctrine, especally now that the Orthodox church had been hobbled. Some popes were decent folk, philophers and politicans, Theologians, and so on, but just as many were not. With the increasing incomes of europeans, and the abundance of wealth, there was much more gold flowing into the coffers than ever before. Many began taking church funds and goods that were intended for the poor, needy, and whathave you, and instead using it to build bigger and better churches. many of the lavish items you see on bishops or popes today are artifacts from that era, as are some of the biggest monuments of the church.Eventually people could take no more, and a humble german monk named Martin Luther, posted a list of wrongdoings on the doors of a local cathedrial. This became The Reformation, Luther essencally drove a spike into the cracks in The Roman Church's foundation and cracked the whole building.

The reformation started off not with the massive riots, or overthrowing of churchly authority as it was dipicted in protistant proppaganda later on. It began as small riots here and there, a few nobles seeing a way to seperate their "divine backed" authority from the church, while keeping it intact.That was untill Rodrigo Borga won the papal election, Rodrigo was everything the rebels feared, the most corrupt pope in papal history, his family locked down the papacy under their heel. Riots became a Rebellion among the lower and middle class. Then was backed by nobility, and became a theological civil war.

The Reformation also saw the rise of both The Jesuit Order, missionaries and political theologicans the jesuit order was in far flung corners of the world doing good works while trying to staunch the bleeding at home. The Jesuits would become a powerful arm of the church later on.It also saw the rise of The Office of The Inquisiton, which untill now had been closer to an internal affairs office for The Roman Church more concerned with rooting out heresy within the ranks than out burning and harassing other faiths/faithless.As the roman church's reach extended and power grew so too did the inquisition's authority. from policing the priesthood, to policing the entire church, to policing all of europe. The most vicious arm of the Inquisition was the Spanish Branch, which owed feality not to the Pope, but answered directly to the King of Spain, and therefore enforced both doctrinal law, and royal decrees. It also had no papal oversight, allowing The Spanish Inquisition and it's leader Torquamada to do things to people that even the rest of The Inquisition found shocking and appaling.

The Protestants split further, some groups backed by kings, others by rebel nobles. Henry the 8th is an excellent example of how royality played politics with both sides of the reformation. this resulted in the hundred years war, which was more political than religous. otherwise why would moments like "cathloic spain needed to be bribed by cathloic france to assist Prostistant German forces against Protistant Denmark." keep cropping up?

Meanwhile in the East, Islam began to, for the first time, come togeather as a single faith, with one single version of the koran as opposed to thousands of smaller ones from village to village. The Islamic Golden age however had ended, power and wealth slowly trickling back to europe, with many arabic lords actually benifeting from the reformation, because the pope could no longer prevent the europeans from trading with Arabs. the tastes the crusaders brought home with them created a massive market for arab and asian goods, and the Arabic lords were happy to fill this void for an exorbant fee.a pound of Pepper from india cost literally it's weight in gold at a few points.The ottoman turks benifeted from this greatly, eventually giving them enough power to overcome both other islamic forces and the weakened byzantine empire, creating one of the largest land empires on the planet. it was an empire encompassing many faiths, races, and languages, and was the world standard for tolerance up untill the modern age.However this power and glory brought stagnation and complacancy, The Ottoman Goverment after Suliman the Great never acheved any further glory and began to sink into stagnation and rot.America was discovered, and europeans found new trade routes that bypassed ottoman lands, the empire's instution's calcified and began to slowly die.

The center of Orthodox Christan power moved north into Russa with the distruction of the Byzantine empire, and stayed there largely keeping pace with the Roman church, however it's status as subservant to the Czar, and the relitive backwaterness of russia at the time kept an orthodox split from occuring.

Far-Eastern faiths were largely unaffected, however they began to rely more and more on mysticisim and superstision rather than the reasoning theology that had made china and other far eastern states the most advanced in the world. this is why when europeans introdouced The Chinese Emperor to the pocketwatch he never realized his own ancestors had invented a simmilar divice 500 years ago.

During the industrial revoloution Churches began to take up causes, there is a lot of stuff to list, and quite frankly my hands are starting to hurt from all the typing, and I am faling asleep at the keyboard.

Energy is a defined term. There may well be some strange thing out there that does what you describe, but if so, it's not energy.

Besides, the discovery of the Higgs boson lends a lot of mass to the standard model of particle physics. (I couldn't resist).

Energy comes in a great deal of forms, if you look into it even a little you should find out there are still possible unknown forms of energy yet to be discovered or observed, it should say this near where it talks about a hypothetical form of energy known as dark energy believed to be responsible for the increasing rate of expansion of the universe.

Dispite attempts, come agressine, some kindly, over the years the Roman church failed to reabsorb the various arising protastant factions.in europe these factons melded, split, and reformed mostly along cultural and theological lines. No longer was the papacy able to enforce it's doctrine as it had in the past.

Many settled in the new world, pushed abroad by the conflicts and attacks by one faction on another in europe. While bias was common among colonial sects, persecution on religious grounds (as opposed to national, cultural, or racial) was uncommon, being that just about everyone or their grandparents had known what it felt like.In South america the Roman Church, with the help of the Spainish Crown made great strides towards converting native peoples, melding cathloic and spanish culture with that of the native americans, this proccess was far from peaceful, but successful.In north america european monotheistic sects also made strives to convert Native peoples to christanity, more often than not this resulted in the two either extanging goods, ideas, or musketfire depending on local politics (see native relations with French colonies Vs native relations with English colonies)

as church and temple became a more grass roots affair in america, in contrast to the lavish state backed sects of europe, so too did local causes become the bread and butter of many an american church, in both north and south america Christanity was preached by men who broke their backs alongside their fellows, and who did not spend all day studying holy texts and theology. in the south many of these men who worked alongside the people of new spain, native tribes, and other south american peoples were the already mentioned "Order of Jesus" or Jesuit Order.In the North. With no major church to back them, or appoint them, Protistant ministers in america gained their position due to a combinition of Education, Family, Chrisma, and Passion. This is the origin of the stereotypical american "Firebrand Preacher" or backcountry "Yella" who would become the modern evanglist.

In Europe as theological change began to settle down after the nepolanic wars religious conlicts seemed to go the way of the dodo. people used faith to back up their already held Ideals instead of holding their perticular faith as an ideal unto itself.In america people also used their faith to back up their ideals, with religious tolerance and a secular authority as a national law, the United States served as a theological and idological haven. Where the state could not tell people what to believe (though the local officals or people could still be biased, the state was not.) For this reason the US was a haven, and still is today.This also means that the US government has no right to lock up fanatics, or zelots, so long as they are not violent or calling for the overthrow of the government.

In the US and Canada the Industrial decendents of those immigrants cush as puritans, were of course influenced by their ancestor's views on morality, and the position of the church (regardless of which one you attended) as a center for morality, purity, and Pillar of the comunity.This idea of church activisim, meant that they would lead the charge for various moral crusades in their states, such as the abolition of slavery, and into the west as temperence unions fighting to ban narcotics, booze, and other harmful or immoral things.This was not limited to america, much of the victorian "purity" was backed up by church views on what was and was not right.These causes, their successes, and methods, were as varied as the people who supported them, from the pulpet, pews, and streets.In latin america many priests began to think on marx, and how his ideals meshed with their own, they also helped support or oppose various political revoloutions, swept in the anti-colonial sentiment. The Roman church tread lightly, weakened as it was from the Reformation.

In the middle east, The Rot had begun to show in the ottoman empire, the malmuks breaking away only to be conquered by france, the empire was slowly carved up by european powers. and Islamic sentiment against colonialisim began to simmer, however they a single version of the koran, or of their theology. Islam in Morrocco was diffrent from Islam in turkey, which was a whole diffrent thing from arabia or egypt. As europeans made strides in secular idealisim & science, and enlightenment influenced theology, Science and islam remained intertwined, and with each setback the Imrams cracked down harder. The general feeling was "islam is failing, we must be displeasing Alah, but why?"The resultant Nationalist furvor began a nationalist movement within islam much as it did among christanity.This is the first appearance of the split between Sunni and Shia sects, they had been seperate before, but the diffrences began to become more defined, and more set in stone.

In the far east, japan had cut itself off, and expelled or killed all christans, the country would remain unchanged for a long long time. China began to convert to protistant and cathloic sects as brought over by europeans, the progress of the Roman Church stopped dead when one of their greatest missionaries to asia was expelled. his supposed sin was mixing Papal theology with that of the local chinese, creating a chiese branch of christanity. fearful of another reformation-style break, they expelled him, and their progress turned nill.In India the Anglican church made great strides, their faith easily meshing with india's many gods and faiths. the idea that "all are faces and facists of a single god" allowed the faiths to co-exist well. Although the Temple of Kali, and her cult of Thuggee (there is a reason we call some people "thugs") were wiped out by the british, much to the relief of the people of India.

Jerhova's asked me that once. At 10:30 in the morning. On a Saturday. I asked why they'd let him run off in the first place and just stood in the doorway until they got uncomfortable with trying to find a response and left.

I live in such a tame country. We don't even have religious people going door to door. It's tough living in a country that's mostly secular, and with pretty sound and healthy politics that aren't influenced by religion, and so on. I have strong opinions, I enjoy debate far too much, but I have no opponents. It's great, in one way, but I want to be on the intellectual frontlines, not living in the peaceful heartland. It's been so long since I had a proper debate, I'd support any proposition at this point!

Oh, I know all about it. One problem with being from a country where there's no real public debate and no "controversy" is that you sort of have to "borrow" other peoples' conflicts and controversies, and this can actually make it difficult to separate the reality you're living in from the reality elsewhere. I'm probably better equipped for debating religion in Texas than I would be here.

I've never had door-to-door religion salespeople, but I have the oddest luck about getting stopped by people who want to convert me, just while out and about.

Like a few years ago, I lived in an apartment building in Toronto, basically just across the street from a strip mall, and one fine day I decided to walk over to pick up a few things, as I normally did. This time, though, two nice looking guys in dress shirts were coming the other way - from mall - and they said hi and asked if they could have a moment of my time. I figured, sure, why not, because a) they weren't bad looking and b) they were obviously from out of town.

Well, it turned out I had been stopped by a couple of Mormon missionaries... from Nevada. They wanted to chat God with me, but I was honestly just too baffled by the fact that they were Mormon missionaries... in Toronto... from Nevada. They kept asking me if I'd heard about the "book of Mormon", or if I'd ever thought about Jesus or some such... but I just kept staring at them in wonder asking things like: "You guys Mormons... from Vegas?" (They said, Nevada, but not Vegas, but seriously, besides Vegas and prostitution, what the hell else is there in Nevada worth mentioning? (I didn't say that to them, though I did mention the prostitution thing.)) Or: "You guys got sent on a mission to preach Christianity... to Toronto? ... Did they tell you that we all live in igloos and ride dog-sleds up here or something? Seriously, how did you get sent on a Bible mission to Toronto? Did you guys get punked? Or is this where they send all the missionary school C students?" (I didn't actually ask them that last thing. But I thought it.)

But later on I actually checked things out and found a surprise. I thought that when missionaries go out to do their thing, they go out to places like Central Africa, or Asia... you know, places where there is a) little Christianity and b) lots of poverty and suffering and thus lots of need for humanitarian and aid work. I always figured that there were essentially two types of missionaries: those who want to preach and those who want to do good work (where "good" is defined by their religion, but usually includes humanitarian-ish work, more or less). And, naturally, some who are a bit of both. I would have thought it a waste of a missionary's time to go to a country that is already majority Christian and doing quite well for itself.

Welp, turns out I was wrong. The most popular destinations for Christian missionaries, along with the number of missionaries sent, are:

USA: 32,400

Brazil: 20,000

Russia: 20,000

Congo: 15,000

South Africa: 12,000

France: 10,000

Britain: 10,000

Argentina: 10,000

Chile: 8,500

India: 8,000

Congo (I assume Congo-Brazzaville and not Congo-Kinshasa, but, hey, possibly both) comes in at #3 - but other than India and maybe South Africa, it's the only place on the entire list that seems to me to be a logical place for a Christian missionary to go; everywhere else is both doing quite well and majority Christian. I mean, seriously, the missionaries who are convincing their churches to send them to France... they have got to be pulling a fast one, man.

And to make things even more interesting, those are the most popular destinations... but the two most popular sources of Christian missionaries are: USA (127,000) and Brazil (34.000) (combined they send out over a third of the Christian missionaries worldwide).

So basically, what I thought about missionaries is wrong. I thought they were people from privileged countries going to less privileged and less Christian countries to spread the word and do good deeds. Turns out it's really more like just some kind of exchange student program. Less like eager, compassionate, brave souls going to challenge existing religions and social structures and do some humanitarian good while they're at it, and more like one bit faithy circle-jerk.